Regional cinema continues to trump big-budget Bollywood flicks in quality and box office.
Mumbai: In the last 5 years, south Indian films competed at close range with the behemoth of Bollywood cinema. At the same time Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films took centre stage, the quality of Bollywood began dipping consistently. Malayalam cinema has always produced nuanced, realistic cinema and Telugu films satisfied the cravings for a blockbuster action flick. Tamil films have always toed the line between Malayalam and Telugu, churning out blockbusters with a strong artistic base.
With Pushpa, RRR, and KGF being the top box-office collectors of the year, more films sit in the southern caddy waiting to capitalise. Kamal Haasan’s Vikram debuted at Cannes Film Festival 2022 and opened in theatres on Friday, garnering rave reviews.
The advent of southern influence is at its peak with actors like Shah Rukh Khan working with Atlee, a commercially successful Tamil director. A long list of actors including Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, and Aishwarya Rai is currently involved in major south-driven projects.
Why is Regional Cinema So Compelling?
For years, Bollywood producers cornered both north Indian and NRI audiences, making Hindi cinema the premier Indian film industry. Unfortunately, regional cinema producers failed to market most of their films in the northern regions of the country. However, social media and OTT platforms have spurred regional films to appear on the world stage. Regional cinema these days finds spots in more international film festivals than ever, bringing in a global audience.
Regional cinema is also aimed at a specific audience. An audience who understands their culture or language. This makes it easier for the films to connect very strongly to their core audience. Hindi films, on the other hand, cater to a large audience of Hindi speakers who aren’t necessarily a monolith. The films slowly began flocking towards Mumbai, slipping out of the “relatable” bracket for the average Indian viewer.
Is Bollywood out of touch?
For instance, Deepika Padukone’s Gehrahiyaan, although inherently not a bad film, comes off as truly tone-deaf. The film should have been a truly messy and raw entanglement of 4 characters but fell rather flat, manicured and sanitized. The film showed an affair between rich, yacht-owning individuals as they cry on the pristine floors of their upscale Mumbai apartments. The same film, if dealt with the humorous “Crazy Rich Asians” treatment, may have fared better with the critics. This seems to be a consistent thread of Bollywood films aiming to emulate western cinema.
The upcoming Netflix origins ‘Archies’ contains a who’s-who of Starkid debuts, peppered in with a few outside faces. The recently launched trailer could be easily mistaken for a western flick with how Euro-centric the styling is. Again, although not inherently bad filmmaking from director Zoya Akhtar, it is certain to fall out of the realm of relatability for most Indians.
The political side:
South Indian films are notorious for discussing “taboo” topics. Jai Bhim, a 2021 Tamil crime drama discussed a real-life case of police violence and caste discrimination. Amazon Prime video picked the film up and later campaigned for an Oscar nod. The film did not make the final list of nominees but gained a coveted screening spot at the biggest film honours in the world.
Politics and political references are commonplace in even commercial south Indian cinema, something that is rarely seen in Hindi features. While one could expect the backlash from local governments, they rather reward political filmmaking. Ticket pricing caps and tax relaxation for socially aware films are widespread in the southern states. Government institutions offering filmmaking courses in universities produce hundreds of skilled film technicians every year. A strong music and arts culture rooted in regional art forms.
The Baahubali Effect:
7 years ago, theatres across the country ran full with tickets sold out for weeks. The Telugu/ Tamil origin historical action flick brought in huge audiences, setting off a domino effect of sorts. Since then, multiple south Indian films fill out theatres and secure huge streaming deals on OTT platforms.
The star of Baahubali, Prabhas went on to lead 2 big-budget films soon after. Both the films, Saaho and Radhe Shyam failed critically but proved that Baahubali alone warranted crores of investment in his name.
“Bollywood will have to double down, though they are taking steps in the form of national-level actors joining hands with regional directors. However, they will have to do more than that to cultivate a loyal audience for their movies. Keep in mind that the box office collections also have a bearing on ancillary rights like satellite and digital since this could go south as well if the performance of the Hindi box office starts plateauing.
All this boils down to a burning ambition and hunger to grow combined with risk management commensurate to the reward ratio from a financial perspective. South has deciphered this math well and in the Indian market which has the largest number of movies released and the lowest density of screen per million population, the release window is going to get further competitive and South has a very strong headstart to take the Indian film industry forward.” said Nitin and Vivek Menon on Firstpost.
